Suicide And Cheese: Part 4

Shuffling through the swarms of foodies seemed a lot more unpleasant from the visitor’s side of the fence.  It was like trying to part the Red Sea, if the Red Sea was filled with fat people.

The Annual Cheese Fair used to be one of the highlights of my calendar, alongside the day in which I allow myself to indulge in acts of self flagellation (14th of September if you’re interested, the day before my birthday.  Sometimes you’ve just got to treat yourself).  However, this year’s Cheese Fair seemed sinister and nauseating.  Not only did I have to slum it with no VIP pass and rub shoulders with the sweaty masses, but some of the stalls this year were just downright offensive.  I spied from afar a couple of the Elites manning a stall for spray-on cheese.  This kind of depravity would never have been allowed under my jurisdiction.  I started to wonder if this entire set of circumstance had been a conspiracy to oust me so that the society could debase itself with these disgusting cheesy products.  However, the poor taste selection wasn’t even the most repugnant part of my attendance today.

The worst aspect of this festival was the knowledge that I was soon to become a murderer.  I wore the largest overcoat I had in my possession to conceal the serrated cheese knife underneath.

Bobbing above the human canopy, I tried to spot Herman amongst the crowds.  He’d have to be here somewhere.  I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away today.  I telephoned his office and posed as a journalist wanting an interview, asking him to meet me at the Cheese Fair.  I did my best impression of Keith Chegwin in an attempt to disguise my voice, and he seemed delighted at the chance to appear in the local paper.  How could he stay away after that?  This was the most cunning plan since the police tried to lure Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy by promising to tell him secrets.

It was at this point I felt a small tug at my sleeve.  I looked behind me to see Johnny Bramble, the young Elite who pretty much ordered my expulsion from the society.

“What are you doing here?” He queried, peering up into my eyes as though studying them for an answer.

“Just taking in the country air” I lied, motioning to my surroundings with my hands.  At this point he ushered me between two tents, away from public eyes.

“I know what you’re up to.  You’re here to pursue some sort of personal vendetta!  Well I’m going to – ERK!  Did you just stab me?”

I didn’t even mean to do it.  My hand reacted involuntarily in a stabbing motion.  As his robes started to turn from cheese yellow to crimson, I pulled the knife out of my victim and stuffed it back into my pocket.

“You fucking stabbed me!”

Before I could chastise him on his language (children shouldn’t swear, it’s so uncouth), he collapsed down dead in a heap.

I couldn’t leave the body here.  Although it was out of the way slightly, someone would stumble across it eventually.  I lifted the tarpaulin next to me and stuffed his body underneath.  Little did I know I’d just shoved him into a very public tent (where Alex James from Blur was doing a book signing).  I immediately heard a mass of screaming and hysteria and decided I needed to move away from the scene of the crime.

Hurrying along, I felt somewhat numb.  Murder wasn’t the great stimulant I expected it to be.  In fact, I didn’t feel vindicated at all.  In fact, I felt rather let down by the whole experience, as though stabbing a child wasn’t such a great thing to do.  Perhaps all my hatred was reserved for Herman.

As I contemplated these matters of life and death, I rounded a corner and bumped straight into two policemen.  The first one turned to his colleague.

“Is that him?”

“Seems like it.  Take him in”

Was this it?  Had my run as a mass murderer come to an end in a few mere seconds?  I don’t think my feeble attempts would worry Raul Moat.

Luckily for me I wasn’t a suspect in the murder.  The police just wanted to question me.  Apparently they thought I wanted to assassinate the President of the United States due to something I typed into Google.  Preposterous!  Anyway, after the CIA visited and questioned me, and a little waterboarding, I was set free.

For the past few years I have lived in isolation, trying to come to terms with my actions.  I feel ashamed that I never managed to kill Herman, but after my abject failure, I don’t really have the will power to try again.  However, I heard the other day that he had contracted a deadly disease, so perhaps every cloud does have a silver lining.  Now, as I once again construct my tower of old newspapers and looking for my old faithful lynching rope, I write this note and hope that this will clear up the mystery surrounding what happened to Little Johnny Bramble, and why Alex James never made another block of cheese again.

Suicide And Cheese: Part 3

That evening was the first night in my life that I cried.  The next evening was the second night in my life that I cried.  The third evening wasn’t without its share of tears either.  My eyes were as red as Babybell wax and my cheeks were so salty that crystallised formations were beginning to form on my face.  Breaking off one of the stalactites and crushing it onto my chips, I realised that I couldn’t continue like this.  That’s when I decided to take my own life.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that to commit suicide is the cowards way out, that it is an act of weakness.  Well, let me assure you that taking my own life was probably the most daunting task I’ve ever attempted.  After all, there was a significant chance that I might miss tomorrow’s episode of Jeremy Kyle.  Regardless, I rallied my strength, fetched a large pile of newspapers and my faithful lynching rope from the garage, and began to set up my deadly apparatus in the bathroom.

As I stood atop my newspaper pillar with a noose loosely dangling around my shoulders, I inhaled deeply as I prepared for my short drop and stop.  Since this was the last breath I’d be taking, I decided it had to be a good one and I wanted to enjoy it.  As my lungs filled with oxygen, my mind began to fill with the faces of my loved ones, past conquests, and fire breathing dinosaurs that I thought would be awesome.  Once my chest was as full as it could get without implants, I opened my eyes, looked down at my destination, and lifted my foot in readiness.

Just then, I noticed something printed on the newspaper underfoot that caught my attention.  It stopped me in my tracks and, frankly, it saved my life that day.  I’d spotted a discount coupon giving me half price entry to Alton Towers.

As I started to loosen my noose and tried to remember where my scissors were, I noticed an article next to the coupon about The Big Cheese Society.  It was an interview with Herman Whiff in which he reviewed last year’s annual Cheese Fair, declaring it to be a success.  I reread the interview and I was repulsed to find that Herman was being depicted as a decent, upstanding gentleman and a pillar of the community.  This immediately angered me.  If only they knew the real Herman; the squandering, bestiality-indulging, glutton that he was.  An inferno was opening up in my stomach as I ruminated on this, so much so that I had to drink a whole bottle of Gaviscon to calm it down.  It did little to quench the intense flames of revenge that were burning within me, spreading across my internal forecourt and getting perilously close to the petrol pumps of my heart.

It was somewhere around this point that I decided not to kill myself.  Besides, you can’t really take your own life, if you think about it.  I mean, how can you take something that already belongs to you?  At least, that’s what my stoner brother once told me.  I didn’t kill myself that day, but to appease Karma, a life had to be taken.

I had to kill the president.  Now there’s something you don’t get a second shot at.

It would be difficult to gain access to the Cheese Halls again, especially after the way in which I was ejected, so a plan would have to be hatched.  First of all, I needed a method in which kill Herman, something fitting, ironic and subtle.  Perhaps I could feed him curdled milk, or get a bull to gore him behind a stable.  I couldn’t think of a way in which to enact such plans, so I decided I’d turn to the Internet for answers.

Now, I’m not much of a computer user, but I do remember managing to knock up some rather fetching posters for the annual Cheese Fair last year on a computer.  They featured a large photograph of me guzzling gorgonzola and were pretty spectacular.  Anyway, I’d heard that an Internet resource named Mr Google would be able to find anything I wanted.  I typed in “Dear Mr Google, I require your assistance on finding ways to kill the president.  Hope to hear from you soon”.  I was surprised to find that it found 1,793,000 results in 0.073 seconds, which seems a tad faster than second class post.  Anyway, after doing a lot of research on various message boards, I decided that the best way to deal with this was a good, clean stabbing.  Perhaps this method of dispatch was a little bit more visceral than I’d originally intended, but you don’t have to buy anything special and the weapon is rather easy to dispose of or plant on someone else.  Time and cost were big factors in my decision.

So, after selecting a suitably large knife (a cheese knife that the society had gifted to me last Christmas), I settled down on the sofa and decided to hatch my plan, in between the ad breaks of course.  It occurred to me that the next Cheese Fair was only two weeks away, which seemed like the perfect opportunity to catch Herman away from the safety of his cheddar-laced sanctuary.  Revenge would surely taste like a particularly mature Red Devil; fiery hot and dripping with sin.

Suicide And Cheese: Part 2

It all happened on another typical day in the Cheddar Grounds.  The sun was singing and the birds were shining brightly.  The cheese deliveries had just been taken, and the underlings were preparing the day’s cheeseboards as I strolled into the president’s office for the day’s events, my head held high as I caught a whiff of a delicious baked Camembert being wheeled along in the hallway.  

As I entered, my head dropped as I saw the hideous haunch of president Herman, huffing and perspiring bountifully over a freshly wooed Philly.  No, I don’t mean a young lady, I literally mean a Philly.  A cow.  The already rather unlikeable president was defiling an animal in the hall where we’d be eating our cheese selections later.  The stench of sex juice pervaded the air, hanging lazily like a stoned sloth on a washing line, and causing me to gag uncontrollably.  

This was probably the most scandalous event I’d ever been party to.  I’ve seen many depraved things in my time.  I once saw a man poke a poo with his bare finger.  I also once caught my brother watching primetime ITV, but neither of these was as disgusting as this heinous act before me.  Unable to contain my horror, I let out an audible wretch as I clasped my hands around my mouth, trying to stifle the surprise.

“This isn’t what it looks like!” Attested Herman as he tried to cover his dignity and hoist his XXXL boxers back up and over his bulbous thighs.  But it was too late.  I’d seen everything.  You could have branded the image onto my retinas with a soldering iron and I still wouldn’t be able to recall it as vividly as I do now.  It took another 30 seconds of silence before I regained my composure.

“I camembert-lieve it!” Was the best pun I could muster at such short notice.  I was still surprised by what I’d seen, so don’t judge me.

“Now you’re not going to tell anyone are you?”

“Herman, you’ve used this place as a barnyard of pleasure for the last time.  I’m going to tell EVERYONE about this!”

Finally, I had the leverage I needed to get rid of Herman once and for all.  Never again will he be able to gorge his stomach on fine cheese, or gorge his sexual appetite on impressionable livestock.  This was the event that would make me president!  As I turned to leave, Herman shuffled forward (still doing up his flies), still protesting.

“You intend to ruin me?  Pah!  No one will believe you!”

I shot him a disdainful glance over my shoulder, but didn’t say a word.

“I’m too well respected around here!”

My hand reached the door handle.

“And what about Daisy here?  A scandal like this could ruin her modelling contract with Anchor spread! This could leave her broke and paddockless!  You can't expect her to live hoof to mouth over this!”

His puns were almost better than mine, but I was not going to be defeated so easily.  Without a second thought, I closed the doors on that decadent scene, leaving Herman to mop up, and headed over to the Elites hall to deliver the bad/good news.

[End of Part 1]

[Part 2]

For a man who had just seen the most immoral event in the world, I still had a song in my step and a spring in my heart.  Today was the day that I’d finally be rid of that crass, belligerent fool Herman, and ascend to true greatness.

  

I dodged past a giant cheese wheel being rolled into the courtyard and tipped my hat to the gentlemen delivering it.  They were unaware of the sickening scenes I witnessed only a few minutes earlier.  I merrily skipped around them and continued onward to the Elite’s hall.  

I couldn’t wait to deliver the most salacious gossip the society had ever known.  This was even more scandalous than when Alfred was caught cutting his Edam with LSD for a little extra kick.

As I approached, the door to the Elite’s hall flung open as if to greet me.  It was as if the building was welcoming me inside, urging me to deliver my important news.  Alas, it turned out to be the other Elites leaving, so I hurried over to them, waving my arms to catch their attention.  It was only then that I realised they were already heading my way.

“Fellows!  Wait until you hear about this!”

“Get out!” shot Johnny, the youngest member of the Elites.  At 9 years old, he still commanded an air of authority, and I had an inkling that the other two Elites tended to follow his lead.  I never particularly liked him anyway, but what he said next confirmed my initial hatred for him.

“Your membership is terminated.  You’re no longer welcome here at the club.”

“But...why?  What have I done?” Seemed like the most appropriate question.

“You know what you’ve done.  Daisy is an esteemed member of our society.  What you did to her is degrading and foul!”

Starting to understand the situation at hand, I spoke in a hushed tone and tried to avoid drawing any more attention than was necessary.  I was aware that many public eyes were suddenly upon me and that lower ranking members were stopping and staring at us.

“You think I had sex with her?  No, it was Herman!” I explained. “I was on my way over to tell you.”

“Save it.  He phoned ahead and said you’d try to pin the blame on him”

“This is outrageous!  I’ll take a DNA test to prove it!” I offered.

“Don’t make this into a scene.  Just leave now before I get the police involved.  It’s only because of your long standing service to this organisation that I haven’t alerted the authorities already.”  For a 9 year old, he could be rather eloquent at times.

“I will not be silenced” I declared in an ironically in a hushed tone.

“Frankly, it’s your word against Herman’s.  And we both know Herman has more clout around here”.

And that, my friends is how the best day of my life rapidly transformed into the worst.  I was escorted off premises to chants of “cow shagger!” and “udderly sexy”.  Outside the gates, a homeless man blocked my path and asked for some spare change, and I didn’t even have a lump of cheese to throw at him.  It was a truly vile day.

Suicide And Cheese: Part 1

To whoever may read this,

Please take this as a full and frank confession.  The events that you are about to read are as true and accurate as I can recall.  Night after night of trying to erase these memories with Toilet Duck have left my recollection slightly hazy, but the main details I believe to be accurate.  I hope that this declaration never sees the light of day whilst I am still alive.

You see, dear reader, this is a story of triumph to tragedy; of morals to mortality; of prestige to pauperism.  It is the story of how I went from being an esteemed man of integrity, to the underhanded and deceitful husk I am today.  It involves an underground society that I was party to, and my shameful dismissal from which ruined my life.

The Big Cheese Society was my entire world.  The society, in simpler times, used to be known under the less gaudy moniker of Curdled Dairy Appreciators Anonymous.  That is, until a major incident in our history forced the necessary name change.  Back in the 50’s, our members used to wear yellowish-white hoods with sacred swiss cheese holes.  We then used to advance through poorer communities in order to spread the good word of cheese.  Since our group consisted mainly of part timers with lives and jobs, the rallies were conducted in the evenings to fit around employment commitments.  As such, lit torches were often carried to see in the bleakness of the night.  Unfortunately, another group who called themselves “The Klan” planned a demonstration on the same night, and the Curdled Dairy Appreciators Anonymous ended up being tarred (and feathered) with the same brush, and pricked with the same pitchfork.

After this disgrace, a young upstart in the organisation led a coup, wrestling control from the former president, changing the society’s name, and installing himself as head honcho.  His name was Herman Whiff.

Herman was a talented cheese genius in his youth.  He could identify subtle nuances in a gorgonzola that simply could not be rivalled.  His palette was more finely tuned than an autistic piano played by Exact Van Pinpoint, the famous musical perfectionist.  When I first joined the society, I had the honour of selecting a new cheese for Herman to taste, while blindfolded, to which he would guess correctly and elaborate on its age.  I chose a rather nutty Reblochon which I thought might catch him out.  Not only did he identify it correctly, he also asked for an Atlas, and drew the exact location where the nuts had been grown.  His talent was astonishing.

Sadly enough, he was also one of life’s squanderers.  He was the type of person who, if he was lost in the woods with 7 other people and he was put in charge of the food supply, he’d have scoffed the rations in a private banquet on the first night, and by morning would be mopping up the remnants of his colleagues with a slice of crusty bread.  Naturally, with all this power and talent, he soon started using his status in foolish and reckless ways.  In the early days of his reign, the drinking and lewd behaviour wasn’t quite so apparent.  However, when he tried to snort a line of blow off of the vice-president’s youngest daughter’s naked backside during a public tasting display, it became too difficult to ignore.

How I envied Herman.  I despised his fat lips, the pop-eyed, rotund, git!  As I watched him age, slowly becoming more and more haggard from the drink, drugs and brie, I started to detest every aspect of his sickening physique and behaviour.  His years of cheese consumption had left him with a waistline that would instil jealousy in a Japanese Sumo, and he had a laugh that sounded like the death rattle of a walrus that was drowning in custard.  Yet, despite these hatefully grotesque attributes, he always came out on top in any given situation.  As an esteemed member of the society, he always had his pick of the ladies.  Women seemed inexplicably drawn to him as though he existed solely on a diet of magnets.  It must have been the whole power thing that made him irresistible.

Over the years, I myself also started to garner the approval of my fellow enthusiasts.  After a particularly tough taste challenge in which I nailed Julian Kenworth 11-9 (I can’t believe he failed to identify a moist Munster!), I found myself elected into the Elites, a subgroup within the organisation who decided and voted on matters of importance to the society.  Being part of the Elite Four was not only a privilege, but it came with a £10 voucher for the cheese counter at the local supermarket.  I still have that voucher, and although that supermarket closed five years ago, I will pass it on to my grandchildren.

The Elites answered directly to the vice president who chaired the meetings, who was then underneath Herman as President.  For a few months I was content with my new position and the newfound respect that came with it.  Making the new members cower as I came towards them with the Initiation Dildo of Cheese will always be a particular highlight.  My skill in this field eventually led to my promotion to Vice President within the year, after the previous VP was fired for eating Primula cheese.  This is the most blasphemous act that can be conducted in our society!  Nevertheless, his shameful exit led to the most glorious day of my existence; the day I was sworn in as Vice President, and the vow I gave to believe in the cheese, denounce the lactose intolerant, and spit on vegans in the street.

To say I was pleased with my promotion was an understatement.  My unbridled adulation was so vibrant that I was voted “happiest man in the world” by Time magazine for that year.  Well, by Time magazine I actually mean a pull out supplement in The Tumbridge-Wells Times, but that’s close enough for me.

Unfortunately enough, my sub-reign was all too short, less than a few weeks in fact.  I was to be knocked off my ivory perch by a man more vile than an ambergris sandwich.  You can probably guess to whom I refer.